“I see in you someone who is destined for great things. You’ll find your way, if you’re true to yourself.”
         from: Brambleheart: A Story About Finding Treasure 
                        and the Unexpected Magic of Friendship
                            written and illustrated by Henry Cole
                                       Kathrine Tegen Books, 2016

      As I thought about this week’s post, I tried hard to think of something I consider myself to excel in or be outstanding at. Not grammar with that sentence!
      I was not very successful with my piano lessons, although I gained a great appreciation for the instrument and a real love of Chopin, especially his preludes, waltzes, and other dances, the simple ones and the complex. 
       Although I can usually spit back a phone number (2024: this was true until my phone remembered them for me) and I add and subtract my checkbook in my head (mostly), numbers are not really my thing.
       My daughters are both good cooks. I told my older daughter she must have a tongue in her brain that helps her think of ingredients that go well together. I don’t have that, but I can follow a recipe.
       Common sense is not my forte, either. I do a lot of forehead slapping, you know, when all of a sudden some logical, elusive answer becomes crystal clear. I have lots of ideas, though. 
       I am not a champion athlete. You might remember I taught myself to roller skate with belts and pillows. And that ice-skating fiasco. 
       This week, lots of eyes will be on Rio de Janeiro. (2024: Paris) Kids, really, are participating for their chances of a lifetime to excel, to perform, to compete.  Athletes, it’s said, love speed: objective, measurable, quantifiable times, distances, and weights. Thousands of practice hours culminate in one race, one jump, one lap, one journey to the end of one balance beam, one barbell lift. 
       Did you know that table tennis is an Olympic sport and (2024: Breakdancing)? Here’s https://olympics.com/en/sports of Summer Olympic sports for the Paris Games.
       According to olympics.com, “There is no specific age limit for taking part in the Olympic Games. This depends on each International Sports Federation and the rules it lays down for its sport.” In 2024, Zheng Haohao, a skateboarder from China is 11 years, 11 months, the youngest competitor, and sixty-nine-year-old Mary Janna, who is traveling from Australia to Paris as a standby in case of injury, is the oldest.
      The average age is about 27, so from my point of view they’re mostly kids. All go to the Games with metallic dreams and National Anthem whispers.
       But what about the ones who come in fourth or fifth or merely finish? No medal. No national anthem. No lucrative contract with Nike, UnderArmour, SpecialK.       
       Gym was always my worst subject. In seventh or eighth grade we were supposed to master lots of equipment. Lucky for me I had friends in the class. Friends who really made themselves useful by holding my hand on the balance beam, giving me a boost over the pummel horse and pushing me over the uneven parallel bars, more than once, to perform my “routine.” If you think it was a hoot, you’re right! Even I was laughing, making it even more impossible. My teacher was generous. She gave me a D because I showed up. I didn’t chicken out or complain. I finished.
       Maybe I’m a little bit of a champion after all. 
       Maybe all those athletes who come in fourth, fifth, or even just finish are champions, too.
       Maybe we all are. 

In Alice Hoffman’s The Invisible Hour (Atria/Simon & Schuster, 2023), she wove her magic around a mother’s love, the “otherness” of fatherless babes, and the tragedy of falling in love with the “wrong” person. The time travel was handled deftly, but her heavy-handed descriptions of the importance of books and reading left me feeling that this was not her best work.

The Last Cuentista by  Donna Barba Higuera (Levine Querido, 2021 Newbery Medal winner and the Pura Belpré Author Award winner) was recommended by my granddaughter. If a dystopian view of the world can shed a bit of hope, this book carries it off. 
      A few hundred scientists and their families are whisked off to a new planet when it’s discovered that Earth is in the direct path of a comet and will be destroyed. Petra, an almost 13-year-old who carries her grandmother’s stories with her, is the only one whose memories of Earth have not been destroyed.
                     --stay curious! (and move toward your goals)

Drip. Drop. Nonstop.
Come on, pup.
Hurry up!
                                                  from The Umbrella
                                             written by Beth Ferry 
                                     illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld
                    Clarion Books/HarperCollins Publishers, 2023

    I spent Sunday and yesterday distracted and processing the news (good, mostly) and stuck to the news (more than I wanted to be) and tending my garden (where I needed to be). 
    I’m still working on an idea for next week, but meanwhile:
      Thank you, President Biden, for all the good work you’ve done. 
      Thank you for your example of a generous spirit. 
      Thank you for putting aside your personal goals in favor of much
            bigger goals.
      Thank you for passing the torch to an up-and-coming generation.

    Even though the sun’s only just starting to peek out from around the storm clouds (which are still visible and very much with us) and the road ahead is still pretty puddly, when I came across this clip I thought it sums up where we are and where we are (I hope) headed.
Gene Kelly with the Muppets Singing in the Rain 

    This week I finished The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills (Holiday House, 2024). It’s a heartwarming story of friendship, family, and self-discovery.
    I started (and will finish this morning) Ferris by Kate DiCamillo (Candlewick, 2024). With a cast full of zany and quirky characters, Ms. DiCamillo proves that “every good story is a love story.”
    I also started The Invisible Hour by Alice Hoffman (Atria Books, 2023). Escaping to the Community, Ivy, a young, pregnant woman, looks for protection but finds herself instead trapped in a misogynistic and oppressive cult.
    As a young woman herself, Ivy's daughter must now abandon the Community to discover that “love is stronger than any chains that bind you.” More on this one next week.
                                      Be curious! (dance in the rain)

    Then, just before it was time to go, Joe felt a tug on his line. He jumped up.
    “I got a bite!” Joe yelled.
                .   .   .
    The fish pulled back hard. It felt big and strong.
    Finally, after one last tug, Joe reeled it in.
                                                         from Hooked
                                          written by Tom Greenwald
                                          illustrated by David McPhail
                                          Roaring Brook Press, 2018

    Until the end of June 2024, only three US states did not have a representative state fish. On June 26, at the very end of Ohio’s 135th General Assembly, though, sander vitreus, commonly known as the walleye, was adopted by Ohio’s State Representatives as our state fish. Most Representatives were in agreement. The measure passed 94-2.
    Even though lots of fish live in the lakes and rivers of Iowa and even more populate Indiana’s waterways, Indiana and Iowa are still fishless, symbolically speaking.
    The walleye joins the rest of our state symbols: cardinals, buckeyes, trilobites, “Hang on, Sloopy” and tomato juice. For all Ohio’s symbols tap here.  
    Walleyes are large, toothy predators. They can grow to 36 inches long and weigh up to 16 pounds, although most weigh in at a modest two to four pounds and are about half that length. They’re found abundantly in Lake Erie and its tributaries and also found in the Ohio River, especially near Pittsburgh. They’re stocked in many Ohio reservoirs, too.
    According to Ohio's Division of Wildlife, over 160 species of fish live in Ohio’s many aquatic habitats “from our largest lakes and rivers to the smallest ponds and creeks.” And 95 million of them are walleye. When I looked up current rules and regulations regarding fishing for walleye in Ohio, I found that no minimum size is required, but only 6 walleye may be taken per day/per person.
    Other important fish in Ohio include smallmouth bass, found in all of Ohio’s 88 counties.
    Bluegill live in almost every one of Ohio’s bodies of water.
    Crappies are one of the easiest fish to catch.
    The rarest fish found in Ohio’s waters is the diamond darter. Since 2013, it’s been listed as Endangered at the federal level (and illegal to catch). 
    Of course, people have different tastes in fish, but according to some, the most delicious are yellow perch, largemouth, and smallmouth bass. And walleye.
    The State of Ohio produces over 30 million fish each year in its six fish hatcheries located throughout the state. The hatcheries and the stocking efforts make a wide variety of fish available to anglers. The Ohio Division of Wildlife works with universities and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in their research efforts to “stock newly created or rehabilitated water areas.”
    While most areas provide fish that are safe to eat, it is important to check the Ohio Sport Fish Consumption Advisory. Their general advice includes up-to-date recommendations for where to find “clean” fish and how much is safe to eat.
    Smallmouth bass and walleye have been vying head to head for the State Fish title since at least 2003 when the Ohio House voted to name the smallmouth bass as state fish, but the measure did not pass in the Senate.
    It just made sense to choose the walleye. State Representative Sean Brennan said in June 2024 when he made his recommendation choosing the walleye. It “generates hundreds of millions of dollars in [economic] impact … each year.” He also reminded his colleagues that several “big-money” walleye tournaments bring “more anglers to Ohio from across the country and world than any other fish.” Nearly one million Ohioans are fishermen and almost half of them fish for walleye.
    Ohio has a “walleye culture” of sorts. Here's a schedule for the Lake Erie Walleye Tournament, held throughout northern Ohio in the spring and fall.
    “Go Walleyes” is the cry heard from the stands when Toledo’s professional ice hockey team plays. 
    Ashtabula and Port Clinton both host annual walleye festivals. And on New Year’s Eve, Wylie Jr., a 600-pound, 20-foot fiberglass walleye replica dives down from the sky to hook in the new year. The fish is LED-lit and suspended from a crane until the time is right. Fireworks finish off the festival.  
    This year, the Ohio House of Representatives approved the walleye at the end of their last session. The recommendation still needs to favorably pass out of the Senate and acquire Governor DeWine’s signature. 
    This time around, the folks in the statehouse don’t see any snags. Could they be focusing on more important issues? We can only hope.

I just started reading The Last Apple Tree by Claudia Mills (Holiday House, 2024). Two neighbors who aren’t friends learn the importance of family history, friendship, and ecology as they navigate complicated relationships with both their families.
                   Be curious! (and take a break from the news)

    Except for Papa, everything [Zavion] had known his whole life was gone. The big oak tree and its shade and the brick walkway leading up to his house. Gone. The house. Gone. Everything inside the house. Gone. And the one last thing that had reminded him of Mama. Gone.
    All of them swept away in the hurricane.
                               from Another Kind of Hurricane
                                   written by Tamara Ellis Smith
                                 Schwartz & Wade Books, 2015

    The Atlantic hurricane season begins June 1, each year and concludes September 30. That doesn’t mean Mother Nature will follow the guidelines climatologists, meteorologists, or regular weather-watchers expect. She makes up her own rules. We humans are only beginning to understand them. 
    Almost everyone agrees with the scientific facts pointing to changes we humans have caused to our climate. Without blame or oversimplification, we can acknowledge that warm air holds more moisture than cool air. 
    Severe weather occurs when air blows across the warm ocean. The water evaporates and the vapor rises. As the water vapor moves higher and higher, it cools and condenses back into large water droplets. Storm clouds form. As more water evaporates and cools, the clouds get bigger and bigger and start to spin with the earth’s rotation. If enough water gathers into storm clouds, they organize into the familiar pattern we see on weather maps.
    Tropical cyclone is a generic name. Hurricanes, typhoons, and cyclones are all names for the same weather system, a large-scale, atmospheric wind-and-pressure system characterized by low pressure at its center and a circular wind motion. Storms forming in the North Atlantic, central North Pacific, and eastern North Pacific are known as hurricanes. A storm in the Northwest Pacific is a typhoon. Storms originating in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean are called cyclones. A tropical cyclone in Australia is called a willy willy. Really.
    No matter what we call them, hurricanes need two conditions to form. First, a weather disturbance like a thunderstorm must be present to pull in warm surface air from all directions. Second, the storm must occur over ocean water at least 80 degrees F. In the tropics, between 23.5 degrees N and 23.5 degrees S latitude, seawater is hot enough to give storms their strength. Earth’s rotation gives them their spin.
    According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)’s Fact Sheet, Ocean Exploration, "[r]ecent studies have shown a link between ocean surface temperatures and tropical storm intensity - warmer waters fuel more energetic storms." And ocean temperatures are indeed getting warmer. 
    NOAA is expecting an above-average hurricane season in 2024. But NOAA’s Administrator, Rick Spinrad, PhD, assures the public that his organization’s commitment to keeping Americans safe remains its highest priority. 
    AI-enhanced language translations and new depictions of inland wind threats are one way to keep the public informed. 
    New forecast models developed by NOAA researchers began operation this season. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) is now able to update the public immediately instead of waiting for the next full advisory, issued every six hours. 
    A new generation of Flood Maps was made possible through President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Signed in November 2021, up-to-the-minute information is provided to help local officials prepare and protect people and infrastructure. 
    NOAA is predicting between 17 and 25 named storms. We’ve already experienced Alberto, and Beryl, wreaking havoc in Texas at this writing, is predicted to barrel her remnants all the way to Ohio late tonight and continue dumping rain till the end of this week.  
    Storms are named each year according to where in the world’s six basins the storm originates. Each basin has an organization that comes up with names for storms. The Atlantic and Eastern North Pacific share a six-year alphabetical list. The difficult letters, Q, U, X, Y, and Z are skipped. Naming began in 1953 and men’s names were finally added in 1979. Each year, gender-specific names are alternated. If a male name goes first one year, the next year a female name is chosen first. At the end of six years, the lists start over. Some day, maybe gender-specific names will become irrelevant. Names will just be names. But that’s a subject for a different day.
    If a hurricane is particularly severe, its name is retired. Since 1953, when storms were first named, 96 names have been retired. Any country may request a name be retired and the World Meteorological Organization has the final say. The last names to be retired were Fiona and Ian, both in 2022.
    The Greek alphabet, adding 24 more names, is used if more than twenty-one named storms occur in any one calendar year. 
    Hurricanes are classified according to their wind speed.
        Category 1 winds 74-95 mph
        Category 2 winds 96-110
        Category 3 winds 111-129
        Category 4 winds 120-156
        Category 5 winds 157- higher
Here's a chart from the National Weather Service describing the projected damage in each category. 
    Meteorologists are discussing whether to add a Category 6 to the classification schedule. Some say a new scale is needed since the Saffir-Simpson scale which is in current use measures wind speed only. 
    A new scale could consider the damage and loss of life caused by amount of rainfall, storm surges, and flooding. In light of the increasing severity of the storms and their increasing frequency, this might be a good idea. Especially with the newly implemented tools and forecasting abilities. The (NHC) has not weighed in yet. 
    The most active Atlantic hurricane season on record in terms of total storms took place in 2020, with 30 named storms documented. Fourteen became hurricanes, seven of them Category 3 or higher.
    Hurricane Beryl is the earliest occurring Category 5 storm in recorded history.
    
    No book this week. Too much fun with grandkids and 4th of July festivities. 
                                      Be curious! (and be prepared)

Today [Dirt and Bugsy] are looking for beetles.
It is not very hard.
Beetles are everywhere.
On the ground 
and in the air.
                               from Dirt and Bugsy: Beetle Mania
                                           written by Megan Litwin
                           illustrated by Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn
                                      Penguin Young Readers, 2023

    Yes, I know. The phrase is really “Put a bug in my ear,” and it means to give someone a reminder or suggestion that relates to a future event. So last week when I bragged that I hadn’t seen a Japanese beetle on my roses yet, my gardening friends put a bug in my ear about waiting until the 4th of July.
    Turns out, I did not even need to wait that long. 
    Japanese beetles were first discovered in the US in a New Jersey nursery in the early 1900s, unknowingly attached to the roots of some plants brought in from Asia for the 1916 World’s Fair. While their population is kept in check in their native Japan by natural predators, they have no natural enemies here. They seem to multiply at the speed of light.
    As of 2021, they are found in 38 states and continue to spread westward. Eradication efforts are in process from New York to California. Even if a massive effort is made to rid an area of the pests, more could (and probably will) reproduce and reestablish themselves at any time. Here's a distribution map from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a division of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). 
    Among its other duties, APHIS watches for “hitchhiking” adult beetles to prevent their continued western spread as it regulates air cargo traffic. 
    At my house, and my neighbors’ houses and their neighbors’ … adult beetles emerge from underground around the 4th of July. They feed on my rose bush and about 300 other plants including grapes (fruit and leaves), basil, hollyhock, marigolds (which some sources said are a deterrent since the beetles don’t like the smell), corn silks, cherry, plum, and birch trees.
    During their four to six weeks of activity, a feeding frenzy and mating orgy, females burrow underground periodically to lay their eggs. Each female will lay between 40 and 60 eggs. By mid-summer, right about now, the eggs hatch, and hundreds of thousands of grubs begin to feast on the grass roots conveniently close to their burrows. By late autumn, the grubs are about an inch long. They remain buried in their larval stage all winter, ready to emerge as pupae in early spring. Their metamorphosis is complete right around the 4th of July when the cycle begins again. 
    And again. 
    Looked at objectively, Japanese beetles, like the rest of the 350,000-400,000 species of beetles in the world including the 205 species of beetles that live in Ohio, are quite beautiful. The shiny, iridescent greens complement the richly-hued coppers of their outer wings. All set off by jet-black legs and feathery-looking antennae. 
    But I don’t stop to consider their beauty. They eat the leaves of my roses, morning glories, and the beautiful little, red bush with the springtime pink flowers until all that’s left are their skeletons. 
    Last year, against my better judgment, advice from gardener friends, and knowledgeable staff at the local garden center, my husband put up a beetle bag. The bags work by attracting the beetles, but they attract ever so many more than they catch. So even though beetle after beetle flew into the bag in enormously huge numbers, the staggering swarm seemed endless.
    In years past, I’ve tried ignoring them, picking them off one by one and dropping them into a jar of soapy water, spraying my bush with the same soapy water, and just shooing them away when I found them as I watered and weeded. And my coincidental and serendipitous companion planting. 
    These mildly non-aggressive tactics predictably did not work to eradicate the infestation. 
    So my beetle battle begins, again.
    This time around, I know I need a more offensive stance. I don’t mean to offend. That’s not the offensive I’m talking about. I’d rather deter than decimate, demolish, or destroy them, but when I have to choose between a flower and a bug, I’ll choose the flower every time.
    I read that Japanese beetles do not like the smell of chives, onions, basil, garlic, or rosemary. Coincidentally, my rosebush lives in the midst of all those plants, but my rosebush’s Japanese beetles did not get that memo. While companion planting sounds great in theory, it has not been effective in my small garden.
    I bought a spray bottle of Japanese Beetle Killer made by Bonide. It includes two active ingredients. Pyrethrins, found naturally in some chrysanthemum flowers, are a mixture of six different chemicals that are toxic to insects. Piperonyl butoxide is a man-made synergist. It works to enhance the effectiveness of the insecticide it’s combined with. 
    According to the label and the website, it’s registered with the EPA and safe to use on vegetables. 
    The first couple of days required vigilance. I sprayed my little rose bush every time I saw a beetle. Needless to say, I was outside for a good portion of the day. Since then, though, I have not seen a beetle. 
    But you can bet that if I do, (when I do) it won’t be there very long.

I started reading The Woman in Cabin 10 by Ruth Ware (Gallery/Scout Press, 2016). I’m a little out of my regular genre (whatever eclectic mix that is) with this psychological thriller. After a young woman boards a luxury yacht to complete a work assignment, she witnesses something horribly disturbing. Without any evidence, though, no one on board believes her. So is this a classic case of gas-lighting, or did the unthinkable event really occur? (I haven’t gotten far enough along, yet to know.)
                                      -—stay curious! (and watchful)